Thursday, March 30, 2006

Pray in the direction of Mecca using Google Maps

Naveed Chaudhry has created the Google Maps powered Qibla Locator to help Muslims around the world pray in the direction of Mecca each day since doing so, according to the Muslim faith, is obligatory. This mapping tool makes it really easy to find this direction. It uses spherical trigonometry to account for the shape of the earth to find the shortest distance between Mecca and the desired point. The direction is then shown on the Google Map as an overlay. To use the map, double click your location and click "go". Zoom in to see the polyline drawn over the map that shows you the direction you should be facing.